[116]. ‘Cosi si faccia sopra la colonna, che il pezzo del mezzo di detto fregio stringa di dentro, e sia intaccato a quartabuono infino a mezzo; l’altra mezza sia squadrata e diritta e messa a cassetta, perchè stringa a uso d’arco mostrando di fuori essere murata diritta.’ The sense of this sentence seems to be indicated by the drawing Fig. 5. The centre pieces A, A, will slip down into their places and in a fashion key the flat arch. There is the same construction in the cornice, see below.
[117]. The dimension here implied is not the width on the face from right to left, but the soffit-width, or depth from the outer face inwards. The dies and the cornice-pieces are of the same soffit-width as the architrave, but the frieze pieces are so much narrower as to allow space behind them for a flat arch of brick abutting at each end on that part of the die that exceeds in soffit-width the frieze. See plan, Fig. 5 (4), and section, Fig. 5 (5). The plan is at the level x, y.
[118]. ‘Sopra il dado del fregio’ see note on ‘Sopra la colonna.’ The middle piece which goes ‘a cassetta,’ i.e. spanning a void, is at the centre of the intercolumniation, not vertically over the die above the column.
[119]. Fig. 5 (4) and (5) show the nature of the construction across from the façade inwards. The corridor is spanned with a barrel vault that conceals the back of the entablature. It starts from the top of the architrave.
[120]. For this use of iron ties, which Vasari regards here as normal, see the illustration on p. 25 of Professor Durm’s Baukunst der Renaissance in Italien, in the Handbuch der Architectur, Stuttgart, 1903.
[121]. The expression is a little awkward, but the meaning evidently is that the pedestal is half as high again as it is wide. There is some doubt whether the clause ‘then above are placed’ to ‘as Vitruvius directs’ refers to the pedestal or the column itself. In the case of all the other Orders Vasari mentions the upper and lower mouldings of the pedestal, and it would be most natural to imagine him doing so here, but the ‘torus and two fillets (bastone e due piani) as Vitruvius directs’ sounds more like the ‘Attic’ base of the column, and the reference to Vitruvius should be conclusive that it is not the pedestal of which there is question, for the good reason that Vitruvius knows nothing of the pedestal under the single column of any of the Orders. Such a feature does occur in classical work, as in the temple at Assisi, but it is not a normal classical form, and architectural purists in modern times reject it. Vitruvius is however again referred to by Vasari in this connection, in § 25, and Giorgio may have in his mind the sentence in Vitruvius, III, iv, 5, in which there is a reference to the mouldings on the continuous podium that serves as the substructure of the Roman temple, and forms one difference between it and the Greek temple. The single pedestal was often used in Renaissance work, and Vasari regards it as a matter of course.
[122]. The metopes; these are always set back a little behind the face of the triglyphs, which are here termed the projections. The metope offers a suitable field for carved ornaments.
[123]. Vasari merely has in mind the familiar difference in form between the Doric and Ionic flutes, the former being much shallower than the latter, and not showing the plain strip or fillet which in the Ionic column comes between every two of the flutes.
[124]. The reference probably is to the portion of the ancient Basilica Aemilia, which in Vasari’s time still stood erect where recent excavations have revealed the plan and part of the architectural members of this famous structure. We must bear in mind that what Vasari and his contemporaries called the ‘Forum Boarium’ was not the part between the Capitol and the Palatine, near the ‘Bocca della Verità’ which was the ancient Cattle Market and now has resumed its antique name, but the Forum proper, which used even in the memory of those now living to be called ‘Campo Vaccino.’ It seems to have derived the name ‘Forum Boarium’ from this very fragment of the Basilica Aemilia which Vasari has in his mind in this passage. The fragment was figured by Giuliano da San Gallo in a drawing in the Barberini Library, which is reproduced in Monumenti dell’ Istituto, XII, T. 11, 12, and from this, by the kind permission of the Imperial German Archaeological Institute, has been taken Fig. 6. The destruction of this most interesting fragment, which stood over against the arch of Septimius Severus, is one of the many almost inconceivable acts of vandalism of which the men of the later Renaissance period were guilty. The richness of which Vasari speaks can be seen in the illustration.
[125]. Here again Renaissance and modern topographical nomenclature do not agree. What Vasari knew as the ‘Tullianum’ was not the familiar ‘Carcer Mamertinus’ above the Forum on the way up to S. Maria in Araceli, but certain antique structures under the church of S. Nicola in Carcere, near the Piazza Montanara. These were the ‘favissae’ or cells within the structure of the podium or platform of one of several ancient Roman temples on this site, which was formerly the ‘Forum Olitorium.’ These substructures are now accessible, and the worthy sacristan of the church who shows them is still of opinion that he has in charge the prison of the Tullianum. One of the travertine columns of one of these temples is to be seen within the church, and this though Doric is extremely simple, even rude, in its outline. Dr Huelsen has however in a recent paper (Mitteilungen d. k. deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts, XXI, 169 f.) shown that this column was originally finished with stucco, in which somewhat elaborate mouldings were worked. It was drawn by several of the Renaissance architects, and Peruzzi notes it as being ‘in carcere Tulliano.’ Huelsen has drawn out a scheme of the mouldings in profile and this is reproduced by permission in Fig. 7. It will be seen that Vasari’s remark about its richness in membering is quite justified.